Sunday, January 23, 2011

Is the BBC in thrall to Islam because of a Saudi landlord?

We all knew that Auntie swung to the Left.

But with a Roman Catholic director general and a Methodist head of religious broadcasting, you might have thought there would have been a little reverence for the majority religion and respect for the Established Church.

Even at the cost of allegations of Islamophobia.

And then came a Muslim head of religion and ethics, and one might have hoped for a little reverence for the majority religion and respect for the Established Church.

Peter Sissons was at the heart of news and current affairs programmes at the BBC for 20 years. He confirms what has already been confirmed: ‘At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.’

And he further observed: ‘…the one thing guaranteed to damage your career prospects at the BBC is letting it be known that you are at odds with the prevailing and deep-rooted BBC attitude towards Life, the Universe, and Everything’.

But His Grace would like to look not so much at the BBC’s attitude to 'Life', which we observe and establish empirically is pathologically inclined to the Left; but rather what the Corporation makes of ‘the Universe and Everything’, for here the inculcation is far more subtle and the induction far more dangerous.

Mr Sissons says: ‘Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.’

The increasing tendency for the BBC to interview its own reporters on air exacerbates this mindset. Instead of concentrating on interviewing the leading players in a story or spreading the net wide for a range of views, these days the BBC frequently chooses to use the time getting the thoughts of its own correspondents. It is a format intended to help clarify the facts, but which often invites the expression of opinion. When that happens, instead of hearing both sides of a story, the audience at home gets what is, in effect, the BBC’s view presented as fact.

He warns:

And, inside the organisation, you challenge that collective view at your peril. In today’s BBC only those whose antennae are fully attuned to the corporation’s cultural mindset — or keep quiet about their true feelings — are going to make progress.

While the number of committed Christians employed by the BBC is likely to be counted on one hand (if they dare ‘come out’) and diminishing, the Corporation’s Muslims are encouraged to be ‘out and proud’, if only to fulfil diversity quotas, and increasing.

But that may not be the reason for Mr Sissons’ observation that ‘Islam must not be offended at any price’.

It appears that a considerable portion of the BBC licence fee is going to a Saudi company.

While Pebble Mill moves to Salford, and thousands of BBC employees (sports, Radio 5 Live, Breakfast TV, CBBC, children’s Learning, Future Media and Technology) relocate ‘up North’ at huge expense and considerable inconvenience, there will be one winner laughing all the way to the bank.

Literally.

John Whittaker is a billionaire property tycoon and the 35th richest man in the country. He is wisely exiled on the Isle of Man and is a friend of former BBC chairman Michael Grade.

Never heard of him?

Few have.

The Daily Express informs us that Mr Whittaker is the boss of Peel Holdings, effectively the BBC's new landlord: ‘The company owns 200 acres of now prime land at Media City in Greater Manchester. Under a deal with Peel Media, the BBC will rent 36 acres of buildings and several TV studios. The terms of the deal are secret but Mr Whittaker’s company can look forward to large BBC cheques for at least 20 years.’

But what is not so well known is that ‘Ocean Gateway’, as the development is called, is only 68% owned by Mr Wittaker.

The other 32% is being generously provided by a Saudi multi-billionaire, one Khaled Olayan, who heads The Olayan Group.

John Wittaker and Khaled Olayan together not only intend to make billions directly from the BBC’s 20-year rental deal, but they will make billions more as many BBC staff will rent or buy from properties from them.

And let us not be so naïve as to think that this arrangement does not affect editorial policy.

There will be no Panorama investigation into the links between Michael Grade, Mark Thompson, John Whittaker, Khaled Olayan and billions of pounds of licence-payers’ money.

41 Comments:

Exactly right. The BBC has become the broadcasting arm for Islam and as such it represents an existential threat to the well being of our Nation, our Christian heritage, and our freedom and liberty. As we detail, so lovingly, on Biased BBC.

In general, nonsense.The BBC has plenty of religious coverage with a firm lean in favour of Christianity. Grand state occasions and Christian events are covered with great reverence and are well-resourced. TFTD is well defended and programmes such as The Nativity, broadcast in the Christmas period, are an example of the BBC's general investment in providing coverage for its substantial Christian audience.

The BBC portrays Christians in its productions as 'nutters, serial killers, bigots, and social outcasts. Just a 'tad' prejudiced wouldn`t you say? To take just ONE example, Lucas in Eastenders!Now if he had been portrayed as a Muslim?

Which is not exactly incorrect, but does not even start to tell a small fraction of the story.

The BBC runs just like any other very large corporation as Peter Sissons correctly observes. Which means that orders come from the top, reflected in The BBC's promotion policy.

In other words do what the top man wants, and you get more cash and a higher status. Do not do what the man at the top wants, and carry on shuffling paper in the office for the rest of you professional life.

Your Grace correctly observes that the BBC is headed up by a Roman Catholic. Yet the BBC seems to be as anti Christian today as it has been for at least the last 30 years. (It is not of course, it is just anti anything remotely protestant, like for example real bible believing Christians, who are usually only to be found in small town USA)

David Vance seems like a sensible kind of chap, and I have the deepest respect for the hard work he has done over many years at his web site Bias BBC.

However he asks many questions of The BBC, yet seems to have no interests in personally working out, or listening to the answers.

What is the point of stating that the BBC is the broadcasting arm of Islam, without bothering to understand WHY it may appear to be so? This especially when the BBC is supposedly run by a supposed Christian, as well as many who claim to be of the Jewish Faith.

How can we explain what may appear to be a very clear paradox?

EASY

The BBC is not Left or left, Labour, or Conservative, Christian, or Islamic, The BBC is the mouth-piece of the establishment.

What else would any one with half a brain cell expect an organization set up by the establishment to be?

The job of the BBC/MSM in general is to promote DIVISION in as many ways as possible, the most important one being, by promoting, and perpetuating the illusion of democratic choice.

Thus vastly helping the establishment to more secretly, and therefore more easily rule over us.

The BBC's Common Purpose is the creation of a post democratic New World Order.

The BBC's seeming promotion of Islam exists to some degree to deflect Muslim aggression from the doors of the BBC itself, but mainly to promote ever more division and resultant chaos in the UK, and as much as possible the world as a whole.

The BBC's job therefore has NOT changed one single little bit, since the very first day it became a corporation.

Which is to promote the interests of the people who set it up, which are the people who own, control, and therefore vastly profit from The British/now World Empire working in conspiracy with the RCC, and the remaining crown heads, and oligarchies of planet Earth.

The BBC's job only seems to change as the establishments interests change.

What the job of The BBC has NEVER been is to properly educate the plebs, or to tell the whole truth about anything at all, other then the sporting results, under any circumstances imaginable.

If or when the establishment needs or wishes us to start hating our Muslim brothers on mass, then the BBC will be singing a very different tune within at most a week or two.

The BBC portrays Christians in its productions as 'nutters, serial killers, bigots, and social outcasts.

I wouldn't have said that applied to "Rev", for instance (OK, Colin could be described as a nutter, but anyone who's spent any time around a parish knows that churches attract damaged people like Colin, and actually it tends to be a sign that they're doing what the church should do). "Rev" certainly doesn't whitewash the church, but I think Christianity comes out fairly well.

"The Archers" tends to be fairly sympathetic, too (there are some very irritating church-going characters, but also some likable ones, which seems realistic enough to me).

Why is respect for Christianity associated with the right? I am left-wing and agree with respect for all religions, including Christianity. A true liberal would respect and accept all religions, not discriminating against a particular one.

Anchorhold makes a good point. And I wonder what His Grace thought of the hours of screen time that were cleared for the visit of the Pope last year? Or the dramatisation of the story of the Nativity? Or the daily act of Christian worship broadcast on Radio 4 long wave? Or the weekly church service broadcast on all Radio 4 frequencies at 8.10am each Sunday? Or the not un-sympathetic light in which Christians are cast every week on Songs of Praise?

Perhaps His Grace is unaware that the BBC has an active and thriving Christian Union among its staff? I am unaware of such an organisation of staff belonging to any other faith.

Along with the DG, I attended its annual carol service last year. His Grace would be most welcome next December.

Very interesting Your Grace. I have long wondered why there were so few white faces on some news items, particularly when filming in schools. No doubt I shall be regarded as a bigot and a racist for my observation but keep an eye open and you will see what I mean. What is the object of this emphasis?

Above someone commented on the coverage of the visit of the Pope which, while it was actually taking place, was well handled. The pre-visit build up on the news and current affairs programmes was, however, relentlessly negative in both tone and content

@ Len - are you suggesting the BBC was promoting Lucas as a typical Christian? I very much doubt it. And the coverage of other Eastenders characters (Muslims, agnostics and other) is harly all sympathetic!

"...Across the first four weeks of 2011, no programmes or series on BBC Radio 4 will have been wholly devoted to any of the other non-Christian religious communities of the U.K. Yes, Hindus, Jews, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists have all gone uncatered for by the allegedly diversity-loving BBC. Only Islam seems to interest the channel's programme makers...." http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/01/bbc-features-steady-diet-of-pro-islamic-programming-favors-islam-over-other-religions.html

Thank you for asking. The BBC is either struggling with their mandate of providing broadcasting which is in the "public good" and getting the demographic balance right while being onside with the perceived challenge to be an agent of public cohesion and, in juggling all of this, are swinging at various moments too much to one side or the other

or

it's a simple conspiracy based on their part-landlord being a Saudi.

Evidence for the first would be the various documents in the public domain such as

If you believe that BBC reviews and archives constitute objective evidence, then we are left awaiting evidence of your own impartiality.

And, in case you failed to notice, the sources upon which this story is based are all linked (and there are quite a few more). By all means, dismiss His Grace. But national newspapers, politicians and others who have had 'dealings' with the BBC's new landlords are not overly complimentary about their ethics.

Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.

Islam is hypersensitive to criticism. If a little old lady writing in a church magazine can ignite this responsehttp://www.thisiskent.co.uk/where/tunbridgewells/Police-called-church-mag-article/article-3124930-detail/article.htmljust imagine what would happen if the BBC ignored the Islamophobia gagging order.

Chancellor George Osborne has frozen the TV licence for six years. This is nowhere near enough. Like Sky, the BBC should be funded by subscription. There are many unemployed people on benefits who cannot afford the licence fee, preferring to use the money for bus fairs to look for work. However, refusing to pay the BBC's "poll tax" means forfeiting their televisions, thus depriving them of free-to-view services. This is palpably unfair.

Likewise there are many small-business owners feeling the pinch who may prefer putting money into their beleaguered pensions rather than pay for the BBC's self-confessed “massive bias to the Left” and commensurate Islamophilia.

As we are having digital reception foisted on us, making the BBC a subscription-only service would be a small technical task and also fulfil the "fairness" politicians of all persuasions keep banging on about.

The BBC has a long history not only of bias in favour of Islam, but blatant Da'wa and Islamic propaganda. Perhaps the most notorious example was the 'White Girl' drama:

"The BBC Metropolitan elite hate and despise the Northern English working class. Their attitude (like Jack Straw and Harridan Harm-men) is that of the Party Members to the Proles in Orwell’s 1984.

‘White Girl’ illustrated this attitude to the extent that the programme virtually became a parody of itself. It was a crude exercise in Da’wa, Dhimmitude and Taqiyya. It started with the inevitable ‘It’s grim oop north’ opening cliche and then went steadily, tediously and predictably downhill for the next 90 minutes.

The examination of the Death-Cult was minimal, with superficial references to Mohammed flying to Jerusalem and the 99 names of Allah.

A particulalrly naff scene was where the white girl ‘exorcised’ her vicious stepdad by repeatedly reciting the shahadah: “Ashadu an la ilaha illa-llah wa ashadu anna muhammadan rasulu-llah” - “I testify that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”… Presumably this is based on the belief that you can get rid on one child-abuser by invoking the name of an even more depraved one.

There was also the totally erroneous statement that a woman can divorce her husband by repeating “I divorce you” three times. In fact it only works when the husband says it.

The take-home message was that the Northern English working class are a bunch of debased, degenerate scumbags and Islam is the only answer to their problems." http://independantbaptist.blogspot.com/2008/12/whitw-girl.html

The BBC does produce some good programmes on Christianity, but overwhelmingly it shares the prevailing liberal/secular values and beliefs of our ruling elites (here and in Europe), in government, media, education and the arts.

Trencherbone .... the portrayal of the Northern English reminds me of Arthur Wellesley's view of his soldiers: ''We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers'' & ''I don't know if they frighten the enemy, but they frighten the hell out of me!''

It will be these self-same ''degenerate scum-bags'' that will eventually kick Islam from these shores.

I remember Rageh Omaar doing a 3 part documentary of The Miracles of Jesus in 2006 for BBC that I thought had revealed a script biased as a Islamic interpretation of what was being presented.

Was it going to be supportive of Christ's miraculous power to heal, feed multitudes, cast out demons, raise the dead, etc, from a christian perspective (Then christian supportive scholar, please) or denial of this by critical scholars (someone of known expertise in the field and having experience). Fair enough.

We had instead a journalist of muslim belief given an interpretation through his own religion's perspective.

Imagine a documentary appraisal of Prophet Mohammed and the influence of the pagan moon god on his writings, presented by a christian journalist or presenter. Not going to happen, is it.

Normally I think you're spot on with analysis but I think the Peel Holdings bit is stretching it a little. And as for the Cllr Jones story, there's a whole host ofreasons for him getting beaten - few of them in any way connected with what Peel Holdings may or may not have done.

Even without Peel's involvement those close to the colossal idiocy of Manchester's congestion charge did badly - and every single part of Greater Manchester voted against the idea. Jones lost because he backed the wrong horse not because of Peel!

Fervent christians in TV drama or entertainment have always been portrayed as either dangerous if they are powerful or eye-rolling bores/slightly batty if they are harmless. This applies to all channels and is no doubt because that's exactly how they have been portrayed in popular culture ever since it has been possible to do so without suffering social death or actual death.I have no doubt that this is because the British, English especially, have long been dubious about anyone who is fervent about any ideology.It's only been in recent times that this healthy disrespect has been tempered again by the possibility of death for offending the wrong brand of loon. Of course the other brands are envious of the fear and feigned respect which the threat of violence gains the dangerous loons and are now keen to get in on the act - rather like the sadistic, but feeble, kids who follow round the schoolyard bully, getting in the last few kicks once the victim is safely defenceless.

Even when the BBC want to interview a member of the CofE on a religious matter, they always manage to pick the loopiest priest they can find, who obviously never went into the CofE for Christ's sake but humanist reasons. You get scared as they are being interviewed that, if asked, they would probably deny that Christ existed.

Why can they never find a coherent, non tree hugging spokesman or is that the intention.

The answer is simple - privatise the Beeb. Principle conditions, the buyer should be majority British owned and existing staff need not apply. Of course, this would not prevent the purchase of enlightened programming from the house of the blessed Rupert Murdoch. However it would enable a purge of the culture.

As has been said the BBC devotes far too much coverage to religion in general and Christianity in particular. I, along with others, have campaigned for many years to get a non religious voice on Thought for the Day, a campaign that ended with a lengthy adjudication by the BBC Trust that rejected our claim. The BBC has a department of Religious Affairs in which ethics is a sub-section. Of course they should have a department of Ethics of which religiously motivated ethical beliefs are a subset. Most of the very senior people have strong religious beliefs and they don’t leave them at home when they come to work resulting in an unprofessional bias.

The BBC does God ad nauseum. When I hear news reports of prayers being said or miracle survival, I sometimes wonder in which century I am living. A serious news organisation reporting on the invocation of magic without realising the absurdity of what they are saying.

Religions of all hues should be seen for what they are, throwbacks to our ignorant past. That a news organisation like the BBC should treat them with respect and even reverence shows how entrenched these attitudes are in the BBC

The BBC does not support any of my views so why the buggering hell should I be forced, by threat of imprisonment or heavy fine, to pay for a service I despise and who treats my views with utter contempt?

True, there is some excellent Religious Broadcasting on the BBC. But Christians have had to fight for it. A few years ago the Beeb wanted to scrap their flagship Christian broadcasting programme 'Songs of Praise' and in 2009 Church leaders protested publicly to the BBC about their attempts to ignore the Easter events in their scheduling, drawing an apology from the newly appointed Muslim head of Religious Broadcasting.

Programmes aired at Christmas and Easter routinely cast doubt on the Christian truths celebrated at those festivals in a way NEVER done with other faiths.

And Christians and their beliefs are regularly ridiculed on what passes for comedy on BBC radio and TV these days. When do you hear other faiths treated so?

Peter Sissons confirms what someone who was regularly consulted by Radio 4 Religious Broadcasting staff told me a few years ago: namely that pieces critical of Islam or Muslims attracted hostile, threatening even, responses and that as a result they were hesitant to offend the Muslim community.

This affected their coverage of community relations between, say Muslims and Jews in British cities and also their Middle East coverage.

Next time you watch BBC24 look at the number of programmes sponsored by Arab airlines? There's a lot of oil money sloshing around on the airwaves these days and the Beeb is no exception.

And my main beef with all this? I HAVE TO FUND THIS TRASH THROUGH THE LICENSE FEE!

I love the secularist agenda..so insidious, it is actually craftly incorporated into programmes, like the nazi's changed the tone of things through propaganda , then denied they were doing it.

The BBC does God ad nauseum.(I think you will find it does Atheism and its other rotten fruits ad nausem..The amount of time devoted to this and the means to sneak it into all types of programmes is disingenuous..Maybe Peter Sissons should say more?)

When I hear news reports of prayers being said or miracle survival, I sometimes wonder in which century I am living.(When I hear Atheist saying THEY know how to create the perfect society I wonder WHERE or WHEN this has ever occurred through out human history but find NOTHING except massacres, government intimidation, suppression, censorship, prison, persecutions from this 'branch' of HUMANITY. Maybe the problem is ALL flesh is wicked and only needs the slightest of excuses to embark on atrocities..Oh, the ability for mankind to delude him/herself has no parallel.)

A serious news organisation reporting on the invocation of magic without realising the absurdity of what they are saying.( Or the time devoted to unbelievably ridiculous explanations of how the universe started, 'ad infinitum et ad nauseum' that get more ridiculous with the telling. If this RUBBISH was within the Holy Bible, it would be laughed at as fabled, superstitious rubbish. I cannot enjoy a nature programme without your 'Religious rubbish' being put across continually and spoiling the program. You and your kind are the true FABLE TELLER'S. I am surprised you have the nerve to come on here and accuse christians of delusion..Hold up the mirror and take a good, deep, 35 billion year??? old look, my primal soup worshipping friend)

I recently posted a comment on the BBC POV forum regarding an interview by Fi Glover on Radio 4 with a Muslim convert. It was the most sycophanitc, cringeworthy performance I have ever heard. The point of the interview was to discuss the apparent increase of people converting to Islam. She then preceded to interview someone who had converted 11 years ago. Hardly recent. I should also point out that this is the second time the BBC have done this recently. She tiptoed her way through the interview paranoid about causing offence. When the inevtitable point about the 911 bombers being muslim, she frantically backtracked when the interviewee took offence.

I raised points about the interview and asked why other faiths are not given the same degree of respect, especially when investigating sensitive issues such as the abuse of children.

According to Warsi, Islamophobia has passed the "dinner table test", that apparently being the test where people dare to express an opinion around their own dinner table without being shipped off to stand trial before the European Court of Justice. But is it really the dinner tables of England that we ought to be concerned with, rather than its army of prayer rugs.

In an environment where 40 percent of UK Muslims want Sharia law, 10 percent support the 7/7 bombers and 13 percent admire Al Qaeda, 40 percent believe that 9/11 was a Jewish/American conspiracy, 62 percent do not believe in protecting free speech, 68 support the arrest and prosecution of writers and cartoonists who insult Islam and 36 percent support the death penalty for Muslims who leave Islam-- -- is it really time for another lecture on Islamophobia?

The British teenager of tomorrow is named Mohammed, and he takes his inspiration not from the Magna Carta, but the Koran. His hero is not Winston Churchill or Oliver Cromwell, but that bloody butcher of men and raper of women and little girls, the Islamic prophet Mohammed. When he plays video games, he imagines that the men he's killing are the soldiers returning home from fighting against teenagers just like him Iraq or Afghanistan. Sooner or later, he dreams of being to do the same thing. He thinks of British girls as whores, of English culture as corrupt and worthless, and feels he owes no obedience to its laws or its government.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)